Should you value customers who complain?

Should you value customers who complain and are they always right? Well the answer to the first part of the question is a definite "Yes!" 96% of unhappy customers don't complain, they just don't come back and tell anybody who will listen about their bad experience with your business, so value the customers who complain as they  believe that your product or service has not lived up to the promise and they are giving you the opportunity to do something about their concerns and to redeem the situation to the extent that they become raving fans. How you achieve that is another Blog or training programme.

The answer to the second part of the question "are they always right?" is a definite "sometimes but not always!" Should we tell them that they are not always right? NO! Although they may not be correct in their assumptions they are right to expect us to help them and they are right to expect us to listen and discuss their concerns directly with them. So value them and give them your time to address their issues. The outcome will depend on how you handle the complaint but at this stage you are showing that you value their custom and make them feel important to your business. Remember 70% of businesses change their supplier because they don't feel valued!

Paul Clayton is business management & training consultant specialising in creating high performance cultures and helping businesses to grow by improving strategic Sales & Marketing planning, Customer Experience Management (CEM) and communication.

www.healdi.co.uk                  t: 0845 3081377

How can delivering exceptional customer experiences impact directly to your bottom line?

I was at a meeting of the Nottingham City Business Club the other day and listened to an impassioned talk by Center Parcs UK CEO, Martin Dalby, which answered many of the questions often asked by prospective clients about how delivering exceptional customer experiences impacts directly onto growth and profitability.

Martin detailed how Center Parcs UK has grown year on year despite the recession because of the customer concentric ethos running throughout the business. Figures like occupancy rates of 97% and 60% of customers returning every 3 years with staff turnover at only 25% being the envy of any business in the travel and hospitality sector, all driven by the provision of excellent customer experiences delivered by the total organisation. Martin gave an example by asking the audience "How many litter pickers do we employ?" Answer "Aound 6,000 - everybody in the organisation including himself"

The ethos of making the Customer the centre of any organisation has to be embedded and nutured, it is not a quick fix. The results can be significant:

• Brand Protection 
• Improved customer retention rates
• Loyal, happy customers
• More profitable business from existing customers
• Ambassadorial customers
• Extra Referral business
• Less selling costs
• Reduced customer complaints
• Less stressed employees
• Highly motivated workforce
• Reduced staff turnover 
• More PROFIT

 Improve customer experience to improve growth & profitability.

Paul Clayton is business management & training consultanct specialising in business growth, strategic Sales & Marketing planning and Customer Experience Management (CEM).

www.healdi.co.uk                  t: 0845 3081377

Customer experience is emotional and different for every individual.

Customer experience is emotional and different for every individual. What one customer might find really good another might class it as just OK!

It's all about communication and unfortunately to date I haven't come across a proven, affordable methodology that can respond to emotion except for people who have empathy and the ability to build rapport.
So how do organisations that really care get the balance right between the use of people and software to deliver exceptional customer experience?

The organisations that I work with believe that human reaction is the best at interpeting the needs of the customer and embed it throughout their businesses. Yes, we need software to handle, measure & track customer interaction and for the customer to be offered the alternatives. Unfortunately, as I wrote in another post, a lot of the software guys seem to think you can get away with 'chat', social networking and email responses alone to keep down costs and really don't take into account the human element of actually talking with the customer and the finacial implications if this isn't what the customer wants - it's not what you say it's how you say it that makes the difference in interpretation.

Paul Clayton is business management & training consultanct specialising in business growth, strategic Sales & Marketing planning and Customer Experience Management (CEM).

www.healdi.co.uk                  t: 0845 3081377

Events & Exhibitions - An opportunity to give great Customer Experience!

 This is your chance to showcase your business so communicate your objectives to your team. Brief them at the start of each day about:-

The products/services on display

What information they need to capture from visitors

Staff rotation to ensure that the stand is always manned

Who is the stand manager for the day/period?

Who is responsible for gathering and collating orders/information?

 Debrief at the end of each day.

This will be the first time that many potential customers have personal contact with your business. 1^st impressions count and how your team act will be more important than your impressive stand. Impress on them that their behaviour and attitude are on show to prospective and existing customers as well as suppliers and competitors:-

Appearance

Do they represent the image that you want your company to be recognised for?

Is it the same at the end of the day as at the beginning?

Professional

Total knowledge of products/services on offer – visitors will not be impressed if they have to wait while information sought from another member of the team

Knowledge of competitor products/services

Do they have pen & notebooks to take details?

Welcoming

Smile

Ask questions about the customer’s needs – people do not like to be sold to, they like to buy.

Give your visitor your undivided attention

Don’t stand in groups – it can be intimidating to new customers

Don’t email or use phones while manning the stand

Visitors have invested time and effort to attend and nearly 80% will have a plan – ensure that they are impressed with how they are treated when they visit your stand.

Paul Clayton is business management & training consultant specialising in creating high performance cultures and helping businesses to grow by improving strategic Sales & Marketing planning, Customer Experience Management (CEM) and communication.